ABC's of Behaviour
Any event, action, or circumstance that occurs immediately before a specific behaviour.
Antecedent
A stimulus is presented or increased immediately following the behaviour, resulting in an increased future frequency of that behaviour.
Positive Reinforcement
A therapist says “touch your head” and immediately points to their own head so the learner can respond correctly.
Prompt
This function occurs when a persons behaviour is to gain access to something they want.
Tangibles
A child says “cookie” and immediately receives a cookie.
Mand
A child screams in class, and the teacher removes the worksheet. The child stops screaming in the moment.
Consequence
A child screams during a difficult task, and the teacher removes the task. The screaming increases over time.
Negative Reinforcement
This procedure teaches a new skill by reinforcing successive steps toward a target behavior.
Shaping
This function involves behaviour that gets attention from others.
Attention
This type of verbal behavior labels objects, actions, or events in the environment.
Tact
The three parts of the ABC model stand for these.
Antecedent, Behaviour, and Consequence
A child used to yell in class to get teacher attention, and every time, the teacher responded. The teacher stops responding to yelling, and over time the yelling decreases.
Extinction
This teaching method involves presenting discrete trials with clear instructions, responses, and consequences.
Discrete Trial Training (DTT)
This function occurs when a person behaves to escape or avoid a task or demand.
Escape/avoidance
A teacher says “say ball,” and the child says “ball.”
Echoic
A clear, objective description of a behaviour.
Operational Definition
A temporary increase in behavior when extinction is first implemented
Extinction Burst
A child is taught to request items while playing with toys they naturally like, and the therapist reinforces communication during play instead of at a table.
Natural Environment Teaching (NET)
A student constantly taps their pencil because they seem to enjoy the sound and feel.
Automatic reinforcement (sensory)
This type of verbal behavior is controlled by a verbal stimulus, such as answering a question.
Intraverbal
Behaviour that can be seen and measured.
Observable and Measurable Behavior
A type of punishment in which a stimulus is removed or its intensity decreased immediately following the behaviour, resulting in a decrease in the future frequency of that behaviour
Negative Punishment
This involves systematically teaching skills in small, structured steps, often using chaining and reinforcement.
Task analysis / chaining
This process involves collecting information through interviews, observations, and rating scales to hypothesize behavior function.
Functional Behaviour Assessment
A verbal behaviour in which fixed grammatical or syntactic structures are used to organize or modify other verbal operants, such as mands or tacts, to clarify meaning for the listener.
Autoclitic Frame